My Grandfathers Worked In An Era Of No Safety Net

[TheMastersNemesis]

Both of my grandfathers worked in an era of no safety net. They were both miners in Illinois. My dad's dad died of a bleeding ulcer in 1918 and my father had to go to work at 12 to support his mother a brother and two sisters. He went to work at a shoe factory at 16 and worked there until he was 65. And he worked part time until he was 68 in the same profession. He was a color matcher mixing paint for shoes. My mother worked in a shoe factory for 40 years.

Her father was also a miner and died a drunk. And he was abusive and my grandmother threw him out. Life was very hard in a no safety net environment.

There was no minimum wage and no child labor laws in that era. You were truly on your own. If you did not have work you just did not eat. There were no food stamps.

The most amazing statistic from early in the 20th century is the top 1% owned 98% of all the assets. And women did not have the right to vote. And you were shot by private security guards if you were trying to organize a union. You were also called a communist.

So I guess we are going back to that wonderful time economically. We also did not need public education then because few people even finished grade school and only the super rich could afford college.

But wait let us not stop there because if you add up all the GOP wants to do we can go back to the time of Dickens where there were no regulations to reign in business abuses.

[Blecht]

1. Can't argue with you

Unfortunately, I have to agree with your conclusions.

[caveat_imperator]

8. Yup.

If someone like us goes someplace where life is as described in the first post we'd be sad and wonder what could be done to make things better.
If someone of the rethuglican persuasion saw what the first post described they'd be overjoyed at the sight and do whatever they could to bring that situation back to the US.

[Kablooie]

2. That is exactly where the Republicans want and ARE taking us.

They are successful in taking 2 steps back for every 1 that we make forward.
They are rolling back every advance that was made in the 20th century.
In the case of evolution, the 19th century.
The retrogression backwards is slow but constant and no one has been able to stop it yet.

[Lugnut]

3. My grandfathers were both miners.

Both were Eastern European immigrants who came to this country for a better life. They worked like mules in dangerous conditions without a safety net. If they didn't work their families didn't eat. They were both drunks.

My dad's father was a nasty drunk. He beat my grandmother and blew his paycheck on booze until a judge ordered him out of the house. The older sons including my father had to go to work to support the family. My dad had an 8th grade education but he was good at doing a lot of things. He operated a power shovel for 45 years at a UMWA surface mine until he retired and he was a stauch supporter of the union.

My dad never once told me or my sister that there was anything we couldn't do because we were girls. As long as it didn't kill us or hurt us he encouraged us to give it a shot. He taught us how to check the car's oil and change a flat. We both learned to drive in a stick shift car. He would be livid at today's GOP.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. While the Tepublicans want to get rid of the 20th century

Just one note, child labor, thankfully was on the way out. Technically it was Ilegal by 1918, but many looked the other way until the 1930s.

The writings for and against are amazing products of the progressive era.

[bluedigger]

5. At least they had a manufacturing and agrarian economy to sustain them.

Heck, I worked in a shoe shop (factory) summers to get through college. Those shops and their miserable jobs are almost all gone now. I don't know what the common person is supposed to do to make it in today's economy. It seems to based on cannibalism of the masses and social Darwinism, but it damn sure isn't sustainable for much longer.

[KT2000]

6. this is exactly why

we need to ask the people who are blindly following the GOP/ALEC designers if this is really the world they want. They sure are working hard to make sure that is society for our country's future.
You put it well.

[sudopod]

7. You'd think as much as they carry on about the Founders that they would have read a history book at

some point in their lives.

You're telling it like it was, and may be again.

[raouldukelives]

14. They must have at some point.

Probably the one I read when I was in 6th grade. Lots of valor & courage but very little reality. Pretty sure they haven't cracked People's History of the United States. Maybe they have a conservative equivalent to Howard Zinn? Did Ayn Rand write one? John Galt's History of the US perhaps.

[aquart]

9. Yes, that's what they think of as the good old days.

[Flying Squirrel]

10. ... and God bless us, every one!

couldn`t resist. I know, I know - it`s no laughing matter.

[mother earth]

11. Not surprisingly, it worked so well for the 1% back then, they want it all over again.

The very same issues at fault that caused the Great Depression are at play all over again. Except that, this time around there are some aspects of the economy that continue on, where they do not feel the pinch as much (i.e., health care, insurance co's) which give some the illusion that we are not in the same dire straights as we were back then. That, and the so called "safety nets" like unemployment benefits that some are able to hang on by a string with. Seemingly, this time around it's going to take us much longer to dig our way out, FDR measures are not in the works, the small stimulus that was invoked was a band-aid. While all the GOP talk of austerity measures could actually collapse us, and short memory spans seem to excuse the GOP from bringing it to us in the first place - oh the lies that can be imprinted by a soulless and lying faction.

Thank you, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, & the empowerment of fraud and corruption with zero accountability & the Bushco bailouts to add to the greatest heist ever, not to mention a FED that answers to no one. When you are the 1%, crime does indeed pay.

Yes, indeed-y, let's privatize and kill ALL safety nets to have a real, show-stopping rape and plundering of the nation, GOP style!
Makes you nostalgic doesn't it? When people jumped from windows because they lost everything and families were separated looking for that illusive and short lived paying job, the soup lines, child labor? Kill health care, kill social security, kill medicaid, kill unemployment benefits & let's have some real pain once and for all. None of these labor laws & minimum wage laws, no bargaining or unions, we need cheap labor - serfdom and no taxes for the job creators, let's get on with it for all of our sakes, you ignorant 99%.

Like Grayson said, they want us to die ASAP, none of this lingering. The l% needs to get on with capitalizing on this 2nd edition of their game of Monopoly....there are profits and buyouts to be made, the one with the most money wins.

[starfox172]

12. SOMEONE PUT THIS ON BILLBOARDS AROUND THE COUNTRY

[JNelson6563]

13. My father's family was very poor.

Irish immigrants, both parents born in Ireland. My grandfather married a lady who gave him 8 children and then she died. He then married my grandmother who gave him 8 more kids. Then he died. My grandmother had about a third grade education. There was no safety net. My grandmother scrubbed floors and all sorts of wretched work. The Catholic church educated the kids and helped in small ways.

My dad half jokingly would tell us when we were kids that when he was growing up if you took the time to poke at your food or complain you didn't like it, in the blink of an eye another would snatch it from your plate. He was familiar with eating fried green tomatoes long before the movie. He also told me of staying up all night with a toothache, waiting for his dad to get home from delivering milk. He just knew his dad would have some remedy, a dentist wasn't a possibility because they were too poor.

I often wonder how many times there were hungry tummies in that house or unaddressed toothaches or other ailments. Seems the R's would love for us to all live that way, except them of course.

Julie